2011 Ties Record for Billion-Dollar Disasters

There have been 9 weather disasters this year that have broken the billion-dollar barrier and most of them exceed that billion dollar threshold. It has been an expensive year, for sure. Snow storms, floods, droughts, tornadoes, and ..... well .. hurricane season is now upon us. The current pattern, that seems to have some legs, does not give a large potential to hurricanes hitting the US. However, for one to slip into Florida or the Gulf Coast states is not out of the realm of plausibility. On other hand, tropical activity is sorely needed for much of the Southern US as drought conditions are at extreme levels. The best case scenario would be several land falling tropical storms that aren't that dangerous, but park themselves over the Southern US or Southern Plains and drop copious amounts of rain..and try to do it w/o flooding or producing tornadoes. The delicate balance of atmospheric phenomena is never boring to observe!

Here is the list, via Accu-weather: AccuWeather.com - Weather News | 2011 Ties Record for Billion-Dollar Disasters

 By the way, since 1980, there have been 108 billion dollar weather disasters. Here is the breakdown, state by state. 

Image courtesy of NCDC/NOAA

Here is a list and published report on the disasters since 1980:  http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/billionz.html